“Boss, we’re just letting him go?”
A look of confusion appeared on Abby’s youthful face.
The iron-rimmed wooden shield held before him was slowly lowered, his right hand still gripping the one-handed sword he had purchased not long ago.
A few minutes prior, facing that black-haired adventurer with sharp features and a cold aura, the scene had fallen into a stalemate.
Even the thin mist drifting in the air seemed to freeze, making him afraid to even breathe deeply.
And just as Abby felt he was about to encounter the first "real" fight of his brief career as an adventurer, the woman he called "Boss"—the party leader, Adeline—had taken the initiative to lead them back a few steps.
At the same time, she reversed her grip on her one-handed hammer, swinging it gently twice like a pendulum.
By signaling that they harbored no hostility, she handed the initiative over to the other party.
There was no reply.
The robust, short-haired Adeline stood at the very front of the line, motionless.
Her yellowish-brown eyes stared intently in the direction where Xia Nan’s figure had vanished.
She seemed to be on guard, fearing he might be feigning a departure only to circle back and launch a surprise attack.
“What else?” Abby heard a teasing voice come from behind him.
“If we don’t let him go, what else do you want?”
The speaker was the final member of the three-person party.
The archer, "Old Borg," who carried a longbow and stood at the rear of the group.
Despite the "Old" in his name, he was actually only in his thirties or forties.
However, his adventuring experience was quite extensive.
He had taught Abby, who had only recently entered the profession, many useful things.
“Didn’t you tell me before...” Abby scratched his head, his voice gradually fading under the other man's forceful gaze, “that if we encounter other adventurers in the wild, we should...”
“Ahem!”
Old Borg coughed deliberately, intending to interrupt the words about to leave the boy's mouth.
But he was still heard.
Seeing Adeline turn her head and glare fiercely at him, Old Borg gave a sheepish smile and explained to Abby
“Well... you have to look at the specific situation.”
“Why are you so rigid? You have to be flexible!”
“What is it? Was there something special about that guy?” Abby had been standing behind Captain Adeline the whole time, and his vision had been obscured by the mist; he couldn't see the specifics of the situation at all.
His deepest impression of Xia Nan was simply the two longswords—one long and one short.
“Do you even realize where we are?”
Sensing the indifference in Abby’s tone, Borg raised an eyebrow and gestured with his chin toward the dense, towering oaks surrounding them.
“In a place like the Misty Forest, a ‘lone wolf’ who dares to enter alone would have died long ago if they didn't have some tricks up their sleeve.”
“What if? He looks about my age; maybe he just heard somewhere that adventuring makes money and rushed in on a whim.”
In front of an acquaintance, the characteristic stubbornness of youth made Abby insist.
“You think everyone is like you?” Borg shook his head, his expression suddenly turning serious.
“That chainmail is finely crafted, and the detailing of the joints is nearly perfect. It’s clearly a premium piece sold by ‘Rock Hammer’—at least 50 gold!”
“I haven't seen that grey sword before, but it certainly wasn't cheap.”
“Expensive equipment doesn't necessarily mean anything. Those noble lords in Neum...”
“Think about it more carefully,” Borg interrupted the rookie’s stubbornness. “The blood staining the surface of that armor wasn't his own.”
“Most importantly, it’s that aura.”
“After a fight, a person's eyes are different from how they are normally.”
“Someone like you—it's obvious you're a rookie who can't even hold a sword steady and hasn't seen much blood.”
“But his... tsk tsk.”
“If you ran into him on the streets of Rivervalley Town, you might not feel it.”
“But in the wild where there are no people... if you had the chance to lock eyes with him just now, you would have understood everything.”
“Really?” Seeing the veteran of the group say this, no matter how reluctant Abby was in his heart, he couldn't help but feel a sliver of doubt. “Is it really that mystical?”
“Why would I lie to you?”
Borg rolled his eyes and stopped paying him any mind.
“But...”
Just as Abby was about to press further, Adeline, who was in front of them, finally withdrew her gaze after confirming Xia Nan had completely departed and turned back.
“Stop.”
Abby immediately fell silent.
The expression on his face was not one of fear or dread, but a deep respect mixed with admiration.
The group did not leave immediately.
Instead, led by Adeline, they arrived at the entrance of the nest that Xia Nan had just cleared.
—This was the target of their mission.
By coincidence, the goblin cave, hidden deep in the forest and usually only vaguely locatable via coordinates provided by the Association, had been stumbled upon by Xia Nan on his way back to town and cleared out in passing.
Because of this, the three-person party, who had taken the mission and received the location information, happened to run into him at the cave entrance.
Old Borg stepped forward and carefully examined the environment around the cave.
He squatted down and, without any disgust, pinched a clump of foul-smelling wet soil, rubbing it firmly between his fingertips and even bringing it to his nose to smell it carefully.
Only then did he turn around and report to Adeline
“It should be a medium-sized goblin nest, with a population between twenty and thirty. No elite individuals like Hobgoblins or Great Goblins.”
After speaking, as if remembering something, and without waiting for a reply, Borg took two more steps into the cave.
He casually brushed aside some fungal moss on the side, leaned his cheek close, pressed his ear against the wall, and closed his eyes in total concentration.
After about three or four minutes, he opened his eyes again.
“No movement.”
Adeline nodded.
From the moment she saw Xia Nan standing outside the cave covered in blood, she had already anticipated the current situation.
“The old method?” Borg suggested timely, taking out two pieces of flint from his waist pouch.
“No need, let's just go in.” Adeline stood at the entrance, her gaze seemingly able to pierce through the deep darkness ahead to see inside. “They're all dead.”
*Plop... plop...*
The damp, cold air clung to their skin, and the pungent stench signaling danger surged into their nostrils with every breath.
In the tunnel leading to the depths of the nest, Abby moved his feet nervously.
His back was already soaked with sweat, and his palms, gripping the sword hilt too tightly, had turned slightly white from the exertion.
Even though he knew from the conversation between the Captain and Old Borg that the nest had likely been cleared and no enemies remained, meaning no combat was necessary, the pressure brought by the dead, cramped environment still made his body tremble uncontrollably.
Fortunately, Adeline, who held dual hammers and walked at the front of the line, gave him a certain courage boost.
If he had been left here alone, his performance would likely have been even more pathetic.
*Gulp—*
The sound of swallowing echoed between the empty stone walls, sounding exceptionally clear.
As if to relieve his inner tension, Abby licked his dry lips and spoke
“This should be our last mission for the month, right?”
He hadn't controlled his volume well, or perhaps the extreme silence made him overly sensitive.
The few words he spoke bounced off the bare stone walls as echoes returning to his ears, nearly startling himself.
“Yeah, the Hunting Day is coming soon. We need to hurry and make some preparations after we get back.”
The experienced Old Borg spoke without much difference from his usual manner, his tone steady.
“Finally, I can rest for a few days.” The other's unruffled tone also relieved Abby's pressure to some extent, and he immediately replied, “Staying here for ten days or half a month, it's either trees or goblins; I'm going crazy.”
“I haven't seen you kid chop down many greens these past few days, and you're already tired?”
Perhaps sensing the tension in the other's words, and seeing that there was no immediate danger, Borg teased with a laugh.
“Wh-what do you mean, I haven't!?”
It was very effective.
The provocative words made the green youth, who had only recently officially entered the adventuring profession, suddenly straighten his neck, his voice becoming significantly louder than before
“Last time, four goblins—I circled a tree stump and took them out one by one, did you forget?”
“Just four greens without even weapons. You could pull any farmhand from the village, give them a pitchfork, and they could poke them all to death, and you're actually proud of it?”
“I handled four by myself! Is that not enough?” Being young, although he could hear the joking tone in the other's voice, Abby still couldn't help but get stubborn.
Then he remembered the tip the other had given him before entering the cave.
He curled his lip and insisted
“That guy with the dual swords just had better equipment. If it were him, maybe...”
*Splat—*
Distracted by his arguing, he failed to notice his footing for a moment.
As he stepped down, it felt as if he had stepped into a small puddle.
Water droplets splashed onto his cheek, and he instinctively reached out with his sleeve to wipe them away.
An extremely thick scent of blood abruptly surged into his nostrils.
Furthermore, a strange sensation—soft yet firm—came from beneath his foot.
“What is this?”
Abby instinctively looked down.
He saw half of a severed goblin arm, as if emerging from the mud, dangling by his leg.
In an instant, a chill shot from his tailbone straight to the crown of his head. He shuddered violently and kicked the severed limb away.
And it was only then.
Against the faint light emitted by the fungal moss in the crevices of the stone walls and the glow of a campfire that had not yet completely died out, Abby finally saw it.
At the deepest part of the nest.
Countless scattered and fragmented corpses soaking in pus and blood.
A pungent smell of blood so thick it felt as if a crimson color could be seen in the air; pale bone shards poking out from flesh; soft, steaming viscera; and jagged skulls with cloudy eyes still open, rolled over like roadside rubble...
His face instantly turned deathly pale.
Abby felt an inexplicable urge to vomit surge from his stomach up to his throat.
His Adam's apple bobbed twice.
“Blegh...”
...
...
“Blegh...”
A customer, whose face was pale from drinking, propped himself up on the table with trembling hands.
His body jerked as if hit by an electric shock, and tears and snot fell along with the foul filth erupting from his mouth.
The nauseating smell, previously sealed in his belly, quickly diffused into the air.
“Sorry, sorry.”
Two companions, who were slightly more sober, left a few silver and copper coins on the table and flanked the drunkard, hauling him out the tavern door.
Xia Nan frowned and withdrew his gaze.
On the wooden table before him were several empty bowls with only food scraps remaining.
As one of the most popular taverns in town, "The White Titmouse" saw these kinds of delirious adventurers almost every night.
He was used to it.
Fortunately, he had already finished his dinner, otherwise his appetite might have been affected.
At this point, two days had passed since he returned from the Misty Forest.
The experience of unexpectedly meeting those three adventurers in front of the goblin nest was merely a small interlude during the mission.
No battle had occurred, and there hadn't even been basic communication.
Following the unspoken rules of adventurers, they had simply acknowledged each other and departed.
There was nothing worth remembering.
In contrast, what Xia Nan cared about more now was something else.
For the first time since crossing over, he couldn't find a suitable mission on the mission panel.
Those green-skinned rats, which bred and spread like cockroaches and were everywhere, had actually decreased significantly in number over a few months.
To the point that even the bounty missions issued by the Association regarding them had become highly sought after.
Often, the second after a notice was posted on the mission wall, the adventurers waiting in ambush would crowd the front desk, scrambling for the task.
And this was precisely why Xia Nan, after a period of non-stop work, was finally enjoying a long-awaited leisurely day of rest.
“It couldn't be that I've hunted them to extinction, could it?”
He joked to himself.
Of course, the probability of such a thing happening—at least given his current strength—was nearly zero.
Strange creatures that hadn't been wiped out even under the encirclement of the gods were not something a bottom-tier adventurer, who hadn't even obtained a professional level, could eliminate.
There must be some other reason he was not yet aware of.
Sitting at the drinking table, leaning against the back of the chair, he was just about to ask the well-informed tavern owner, Chappton, for information.
Suddenly, the voices of several adventurers chatting at the neighboring table drifted over.
“Damn it, I think the owners of these general stores in town have gone crazy for money. They dare charge me several copper coins for a five-foot piece of hemp rope.”
“Other supplies like sleeping bags have doubled in price since the last time I bought them.”
“What does that mean? They think we make money easily, so they just fleece us, fuck!”
Hearing them mention this, Xia Nan also felt a resonance.
He had taken missions at high intensity for the past two months, and his frequency of purchasing various supplies was very high.
He went to the general store almost every few days.
Because of this, he could clearly feel the prices skyrocketing as time passed.
But he had originally thought it was just a normal phenomenon in Rivervalley Town as the end of the year approached, so he hadn't thought much of it.
Looking at it now... there seemed to be something wrong?
Seeing the conversation at the neighboring table deepen, he quietly pricked up his ears.
“Hehe, you just arrived in Rivervalley Town this year, so you probably don't know. There's a reason why supply prices suddenly rose across the board...”
“Tell me more!”
(End of Chapter)